


Rebel Run

by Metronomeblue



Series: imagine me & you- forever [7]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - World War I, F/F, Gen, Just gals being pals, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, World War I, that's a joke they're gay as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13813959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: The tense frustration, the sharp argument in his voice- it meant they were leaving.///Part one of the World War One AU- Yoruichi and co leave, only this time Soi Fon follows.





	Rebel Run

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been... a mess to write. Originally meant as my usual Valentine's soulmate fic, I was late. And then I got mugged, so my outlines were stolen. And then I went into an emotional coma, so. But it's here! It's here, finally. 
> 
> So, so sorry for the wait. Truly, I am.

They are leaving her behind.

She runs barefoot and furious down the dock, and her body has been so conditioned, so trained, that she hardly has to think about the debris before her, the workers around her. She navigates them on instinct alone, her mind distant and running its own race, hurtling towards any kind of conclusion that doesn’t involve her failure.

She woke up in the dark, voices hushed and clattering through the door. A murmur, a mumble, an argument. One word came through clearly, and her heart lurched in her chest. 

“Yoruichi-“ and the voice, she _hated_ that voice, hated it in the way she hated all liars and traitors, but that name with no address slipping off of his tongue was a sign of urgency. She hated that she knew that. She hated that she knew him. The tense frustration, the sharp argument in his voice- it meant they were leaving. Lady Yoruichi said something in return, muffled by the door and _oh_ , how she wished she could hear it more clearly. There was the slide of crates, the scrape-whoosh of their being lifted, the clink of a lamp taken off of its hook, and the golden glow which had crept under her door began to fade. She lay, silent on her side, mind racing. 

And then she got up. She snatched her sword from beside her bed, tied her yukata more tightly. She slid her door open and dashed through it, chasing them as they took from her everything she held dear.

She’s still running, still angry, still wet with rain and fog and the morning, the morning is breaking open so grey it’s almost night. Mist and steam and smoke crowd the docks, and she slips, she skids, but the pain in her feet, in her knees, is so much less important than catching up. She has to catch up to him, because if she can do that, she can see Lady Yoruichi again. She stands, and that could be blood running down her legs. It could be fog, or steam, or sweat. It doesn’t matter, because she has to catch up.

She has to. 

She runs, and runs, and they might have had a head start, but she was faster. She was always faster, and she comes to a sliding, panting stop in front of them, and the surprise on his face is sweet as the surprise on _hers_ is bitter.

“You’re abandoning your post,” she spits, and who cares if she’s breathing hard, if there’s a blind numbness in her body that she knows will ache later. Who cares if her grip on her sword is hanging by the tips of her fingers. She caught up. She made it. She can stop them. “You’re abandoning your duty.”

“One might assume you would expect that from me, Miss Soi Fon.” Urahara smiles, and that soft, gentle look makes her want to strangle him, makes her want to scream because it’s a lie, it’s such a lie, and she knows it, but she can’t even look at him when her Lady is right _there_. “You’ve never thought highly of me.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she says, and all the effort has gone out of her voice. She’s taut, her breathing is regular, her heartbeat is steady. Lady Yoruichi looks back at her, eyes wide and face loose with surprise, and it burns at Soi Fon's heart, it aches. “You’re abandoning your post,” she repeats. “Your country, your duty-” _Me,_ she wants to say, as much as she doesn’t, but the word gets caught between her teeth, bared and sharp, and that kind of weakness has no place here. The mark on her hip crackles like static running over it, and she shifts her grip to level her sword at her Lady’s throat. “It is my duty as a member of the guard to return you to your superiors for questioning.” Lady Yoruichi’s face returns to itself, realigns, and the dark warmth of her eyes is its own sort of pain, the fondness, there, the regard she’s always longed for-

“I should have known we’d wake you up,” Yoruichi sighs, and nods to Urahara without so much as looking back at him. 

Soi Fon’s blade scrapes delicately over her throat, and despite herself she feels the urge to pull back, to stop herself from causing further harm. But this is her duty, to her country and to her Lady, to do her utmost, even in pursuit of her own soulmate. “I had hoped we’d be gone before you woke up. So we could avoid all of this.” She can see Urahara and Tsukabishi, distantly, out-of-focus, and she wants to turn away because it would be easier to be angry with them, but to look away now would be the hardest thing in the world. They walk away, and something in her locks up. It’s as if there’s a thread between them, a tight, heavy connection that can’t be severed by anything less than a natural disaster, and it pulses in Soi Fon’s thoat, the knowledge that this is what love is. 

_This_ is what having a soulmate means, this here. A sword in her hand, at her Lady’s throat, and the bone-deep knowledge in both of them that she’d never press any further. Not an empty threat, but an unbroken promise from the time before.

“You could have asked me to come.” The words fall from her lips before she can catch them, and for the second time that day, Yoruichi blinks at her in surprise.

“Your duty,” she says, brow furrowing. “Your country, your post-”

“ _You_ ,” Soi Fon says, and then wishes she could unsay. There are tears burning in her eyes. “My duty is to you, my Lady. What country could I serve, what post could I occupy… what commander could I follow who would be better than you?”

“You have a future ahead of you,” Yoruichi says, after a moment. “A long one, maybe. Maybe not. But I thought, perhaps, you’d rather not be dragged into Kisuke’s mess.”

“Is it your mess, too?” She asks, and the half-smile lighting Yoruichi’s face is brighter than the sun rising against her. She can almost forget the sword in her hand, looking at that. 

“Would you come with me, if it was?” The light turns her gold, strings violet through her hair and fire through her eyes, and Soi Fon wants to stop this, wants to turn around and report back and say ‘I don’t know’ to every question ever asked of her.

“I’d come,” she blurts out, awkward and stony. “Even if it wasn’t,” she admits, and there’s something sacred in that admission, an unbreachable trust that softens the lingering doubt in Yoruichi’s face.

“I hope I’m worthy of this,” she murmurs, stepping forward, letting Soi Fon’s blade glide silver and red against the side of her neck, her thin, thin skin. It leaves a trail of blood on the steel, and Soi Fon opens her mouth to protest, tries to move her hand away, but it’s like they’re moving in water. Yoruichi comes closer, gliding, and before Soi Fon can so much as bring down her sword their mouths are pressed together, warm breath stolen from her lungs because how could she waste any time breathing when Yoruichi is kissing her like this? Her lips are soft, warm, firm and careful on Soi Fon’s own. She doesn’t want it to end, and her lady pulls away just enough to press another quick peck to the corner of her mouth.

“Your nose is cold,” she murmurs into Soi Fon’s cheek, smiling.

“I’m sorry, Lady Yoruichi,” she replies, blushing, and Yoruichi laughs.

“There’ll be time for that later,” she reassures her, and slips her hand into Soi Fon’s. “For now, let’s get onboard and take care of you.”

She’s being led, hand-in-hand, to a ship she’s never seen, to two men she doesn’t much care for and an uncertain future in a rapidly shifting world. She carries a sword stained with her Lady’s blood and nothing, nothing else. The sun falls golden on her face and turns the white fog luminous and bright. She is lost. She is leaving. Leaving her post, her position, her duty, but above all, she is leaving with _her_. They are rebels now, enemies of the state and deserters, poised to be hunted and executed, a breath away from torture and reprimands and a slow, certain death to be made an example of.

But she can’t help but smile, because something about it feels right, feels proper, like the weight of her sword, or the brush of Yoruichi’s hand over the mark on her hip. Something about disobedience feels like _home_.

So that’s where she’s going.


End file.
